Today's verdict came two months after protesters wrecked the foundation of the government-inaugurated memorial because they saw it as an attempt to appropriate the legacy of victims killed by the state's own security forces.

Dozens of protesters died in the notorious November 2011 street battles with police, but authorities held nearly no one responsible for the killings.

The verdict comes days before Egyptians mark the third anniversary of a January 25 uprising that forced long-time authoritarian Hosni Mubarak from power, amid a state of intimidation of critics of the current military-backed authorities, often painted by the media as traitors.